Sweden is one of world’s top aid donors

Sweden’s Minister for International Development CooperationPhoto: Kristian Pohl/Government Offices of Sweden

Sweden is one of the countries in the world with the highest level of development aid as a percentage of gross national income (GNI), according to new figures from the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for 2015.

This applies whether costs for asylum reception are included or not.

In 2015, Sweden’s development aid budget amounted to 0.96 per cent of GNI. In the OECD DAC outcome data, Sweden ends up with a much higher figure: 1.4 per cent of GNI.

The figure is high because Sweden, as in previous years, reports total costs for reception of asylum seekers from developing countries in accordance with applicable DAC principles on what can be counted as development aid.

This also includes costs financed through parts of the central government budget other than development aid.

Neither the development aid budget nor development aid activities have been affected by the increased costs of asylum reception in 2015. The figure 1.4 per cent also includes advance payments to a number of UN bodies and a promissory note to the Green Climate Fund, which results in a higher outcome.

In the development aid budget for 2015, 22 per cent of the 0.96 per cent of GNI went to costs for asylum reception. For 2016, the Government has set a limit – a maximum of 30 per cent of the development aid budget may go towards asylum costs.

According to the spring amending budget, presented today, asylum costs in 2016 will amount to 28.3 per cent of the development aid budget, which totals approximately SEK 43.4 billion.

The DAC data also shows the percentage of total reported development aid funds that went to asylum costs at home, which in Sweden’s case was 33.8 per cent.

However, this includes costs financed through other parts of the central government budget. It is therefore important to underline that in 2015, 22 per cent of the Swedish development aid budget went to asylum reception.